Our 4th of July...

 Here's a little bit of what we did for the 4th of July this year.

 We went cherry picking up in Leona Valley at Big John's Orchard. It was pretty hot and the girls only lasted about 30 minutes, but it really doesn't take that long to pick a bunch of cherries... it ended up being plenty of time.

 Abby's cherries had a hard time finding their way into the bucket... she really like the whole picking and eating idea.

 After cherry picking we stopped by Lazy T Ranch with high hopes to pet and maybe even ride some horses. I guess on normal non-holiday days they have little ponies for the kids to ride and trail rides everyday around 4pm, but being the 4th of July it sounded like most of the horses were out at the parade and other events going on in town.

Ben smelled like cherries and this little one was looking for a treat!

There of course was barbecue for dinner, as well as the pitting of mass amounts of cherries for freezer jam and mini cherry pies. Then a trip to the park to watch the fireworks. I think we'll have to go pick cherries every year... I miss having my fridge filled with their sweet yummy goodness!

Headed Out West For Father's Day...

For Father's Day Ben decided he wanted to go visit an old west town... a lot of us around here think he's been playing maybe a little too much Red Dead Redemption as of late, but whatever... it was his special day, plus it got us all out of the house for a really fun afternoon that we might not have done otherwise. We ended up in a little old town called Calico. It was back in it's day (1881) an extremely prosperous silver mining town, turned ghost town (1904), turned theme parkish restoration project (1951 - thanks to Mr. Knott of the Knott's Berry Farm fame) and then finally turned county regional park (1966). Actually getting to Calico took a little while (it's half way between LA and Vegas...around 2 hours), but it was pretty cool driving through the desert and seeing parts of our state we'd never even see before. The town of Calico was a mix of original buildings (around 5 of them), restored ones built from old photographs, and then just weird, quirky attractions built in by Mr. Knott... so the place kinda had this weird vibe of a cool, old, authentic, ghost town mixed in with an abandoned, old, theme park. It's totally worth the visit though, especially if you're on your way to or from Vegas. I think Ben and I want to go to Bodie next, since we both loved all the old historic aspects about Calico and not so much the added on stuff.

The entrance to Calico

Lizzie and Ben looking for the horses, which unfortunately were no longer there.

The old school house... this was a rebuilt building, but still had a ton of original artifacts inside. The school also doubled as a church on Sundays... who knew that's were the term sunday school came from. Ben and I never really put the two together until then.

Inside the school... wish I would have taken more pictures of the inside of stuff. I didn't realize how well you could see them until we got home.

An old house built under the cliff of a rock

In the pottery shop ( I did say it was mix theme park, right) the girls were making a horse medallion.

Panning for some gold...

The actual old, original saloon. The smell of that place was crazy, not in a bad way, but in a really cool, old, dusty book kinda way.

The main street in Calico

The glass bottle house... looked really cool, but one of the weird, quirky additions.

While we were there we took a tour of Maggie's Mine, which was an actual real working mine back in 1881. Hands down one of the coolest parts of the whole town... being able to go underground and freely explore the mine plus you still saw tons of sparkles in the rock walls.

Ben wandering the hillside above the mine

Ahhh, ice cream... it was hot and Lizzie liked Abby's better!

The girls in the general store, which was also one of the original buildings. Abby was loving all the candy lining one side of the whole store and of course right at her level.

Summer Vacation...

In June we went up to visit my family in Cheney, WA. It's been way too long since we've spent any time with my family and it was really great to hangout with my mom and dad, play on the water, and just enjoy the awesome scenery ... even my brother and his girlfriend, Melissa, and my grandma came over to the lake house to play! We arrived on Thursday evening and the girls settled right in and throughly enjoyed hearing the frogs and crickets sing them to sleep. The next day, which happen to be the day Kyle and Melissa arrived and my mom's last day of school, was kinda cloudy and a little cold, but that did't stop us from enjoying the water. The rest of our days were beautiful, sunny, warm, and even more fantastic with the arrival of my grandma. Thanks mom and dad (and grandma) for letting us take over your house for a good chunk of the week, we loved every minute of it! The girls had a lot of fun throwing rocks in the lagoon, chasing your kitties, and being out on the water... and both are still taking about the jet ski rides. : )

Abby playing on the shore. That's my parents' house directly behind her.

Lizzie completely taking over grandma's house!

The boys taking out the boat for a quick little ride

Abby and Ben ready to ride... she wasn't quite sure what to think of it at first and she'd rather be riding this instead...

Out on the canoe... she could have stayed out here forever!

Abby... are you driving the boat?!

This was by far Lizzie's most favorite thing ever. From the dock you could hear her yelling at Ben... go faster, daddy, faster!

my grandma and Abby

enjoying the deck on a lazy, late afternoon

Ben thinking it was way warmer than it really was

I still can't believe I didn't go fishing... don't know how that happened, but despite the lack slimy worms and hooks I still enjoyed every minute of it... minus Ben trying to pack the canoe with two very wiggly, cranky, little girls before we had a chance to take it out without them, which in turn made me cranky and freak out for no good reason. : ) Thanks again mom, dad, and grandma... hopefully we'll see you sooner than every 2 years, cause that just stinks!